Iowa's Incredible Exposition Palaces

Did
you know that a century ago Iowans built beautiful palaces for their kings?
Imagine that you are climbing up into the high palace towers. Across the countryside
the roads are filled with buggies headed toward the palace. Trains are arriving
down at the station. Thousands of visitors are coming to see the kings.

You didn't know that kings lived
in Iowa in the late 1880s? They did. And their names were King Corn in Sioux City, King
Coal in Ottumwa, King Flax in Forest City and King Bluegrass in Creston.

Crops Were King

The kings were crops and resources,
not people. But they were so important to Iowa's economy that Iowans called
them "kings." Iowans were proud of their rich soil and new businesses.
And they needed a way to advertise this to people who didn't live nearby.

They could have used the old, traditional
ways of advertising. For centuries, and in all parts of the world, merchants
and farmers have gathered at fairs and markets to sell their products. When
settlers first came to Iowa and planned their towns, they always included
a place for the market. County and state fairs had been common in Iowa since
the 1850s. At the fair the person who grew the biggest or best vegetable or
animal, or who baked the best bread or made the best quilt, would win a prize.

New Products, New Advertising

But fairs and markets were the old
ways of showing off hard work and good ideas. Life was changing in the late
1800s, and people wanted new ways of showing those changes. The 1800s are
sometimes called the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America. Before this
time, the people who worked on farms and in factories did much of the work
by hand. Now in the late 1800s huge machines powered by steam did the work.
New products were invented and manufactured faster than ever before. Better
communication and transportation networks meant that people could travel and
do business in different parts of the world.

In Europe and America huge expositions
were held to show the new products, machines and ideas to the public. The
expositions were a lot like the World's Fairs. In America the first big exposition
was held in Philadelphia in 1876. Visitors stood in line to see how telegraphs,
telephones, sewing machines and typewriters worked. The American people were
proud of their new inventions. Expositions were the new, exciting way to advertise
products and celebrate progress.

Palaces in Iowa

Around
1890 several cities and towns in Iowa wanted new ways to show their local
pride too. This was the era of the great exposition palaces in our state.
Citizens built large and elaborate wooden buildings. Inside they set up magnificent
displays of their crops and products. Thousands of visitors came to see the
palaces.

But there was one thing that made
the palace buildings really unusual. The outside of each palace was covered
with the crops grown and the resources found in that part of the state. Local
artists covered the palace walls with grains and grasses and minerals in patterns
and designs. Thousands of people visited them, and they talked about the palaces
for months afterwards.

Now most of our advertising is
done on television, radio, billboards or on the Internet. We hear about new
products in catalogs and magazines. But back in the 1880s and 1890s, Iowans
thought palaces were a terrific way of exhibiting or exposing their products
to the public. Some people said Iowa was the state with the best exposition
palaces in America.